A project management application manages tasks associated with a project. A project management application program allows a user to define project goals, plan tasks and resources, schedule tasks for completion to achieve a goal, display a project plan, and carry out and manage the project. The project management application program provides many benefits including: automatically calculating the project schedule; automatically updating the project schedule if task information has been changed; analyzing the project schedule to schedule resources and evaluate alternatives; providing schedule output in a standard format which is consistent for all projects; and storing the schedule data for use in future projects.
A project management schedule is composed of tasks. The schedule defines the sequence in which the tasks occur, the resources needed to complete the task, and calendar information associated with the tasks. Each task is defined to include information associated with the start and finish date and time, the percentage of work completed, the required resources, projected and actual costs, etc.
Project schedules containing task information may be displayed using a Gantt Chart. The Gantt Chart is named after Henry L. Gantt who first used a bar chart to graphically plot tasks on a timescale to indicate the start and finish dates of a task. A Gantt Chart typically shows a list of tasks on the left side of a display, and a bar chart on the right side of the display. The bar chart graphically shows the task information on a timescale defined by the user such that a lot of detailed task information may be examined and compared. However, the bar chart of detailed task information does not provide a high level overview of the project schedule.